Y Combinator
Y Combinator provides seed funding and mentorship for startups, helping founders refine their ideas and navigate the early stages of company growth.
At a Glance
- Early-stage tech startups
- AI/ML startups
- Biotech and Healthcare
- Fintech
- +2 more
AI Tools by Y Combinator
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Paxel
AI Coding Session Analyzer
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Latest News
Y Combinator announces fastest-ever application growth for 2026 cycles.
YC releases Spring 2026 'Request for Startups' list focusing on AI infrastructure.
YC launches new AI-native tools for the Co-Founder Matching platform.
Garry Tan highlights trend: 25% of current YC cohort use AI-generated codebases.
Products & Services
A three-month intensive program for startups that includes seed funding, mentorship, and a Demo Day.
A free online course and community for founders at any stage.
A job board and platform connecting candidates with careers at YC-backed companies.
A platform to help founders find potential co-founders based on interests and skills.
Market Position
YC is the world's leading startup accelerator, positioned as a 'prestige' institution with the strongest alumni network and most successful portfolio globally. It competes with other accelerators like Techstars and 500 Global, and increasingly with early-stage VCs like Sequoia Arc.
Leadership
Founders
Paul Graham
Co-founder of Viaweb (sold to Yahoo in 1998 for $49M), influential essayist, and programmer.
Jessica Livingston
Former VP of Marketing at Adams Harkness, an investment bank; author of 'Founders at Work'.
Robert Tappan Morris
Professor at MIT, co-founder of Viaweb, and creator of the first internet worm (Morris worm).
Trevor Blackwell
Roboticist, founder of Anybots, and co-founder of Viaweb.
Executive Team
Garry Tan
President and CEO
Co-founder of Posterous (YC S08) and Initialized Capital; former YC partner (2011-2015).
Jared Friedman
Managing Partner
Co-founder of Scribd (YC S06); joined YC as a partner in 2015.
Board of Directors
Founding Story
YC was started in March 2005 with the goal of testing a new model for seed funding. The founders decided to fund a 'batch' of startups over a summer in Cambridge, MA, to see if they could help a group of founders at once rather than one-by-one.
Business Model
Revenue Model
Equity-based investment model. YC makes money through capital gains on its equity stakes in portfolio companies when they have exits (IPOs or acquisitions).
Pricing Tiers
Investment of $125k for 7% equity plus an additional $375k on an MFN (Most Favored Nation) SAFE.
Target Markets
- Early-stage tech startups
- AI/ML startups
- Biotech and Healthcare
- Fintech
- SaaS and B2B
- Consumer Tech
- Early-stage startup formation
- Pre-seed and Seed fundraising
- Product-market fit exploration
- Hiring first employees
- Scaling early-stage operations
- Airbnb
- Stripe
- Dropbox
- Coinbase